Analisi sismostratigrafica del margine apulo nell'offshore delle Murge settentrionali

The stratigraphic analysis of the Puglia offshore (between the Southern Gargano and Murge areas) was accomplished by using about 1700 km of multichannel seismic and 10 exploratory well profiles. The studied area includes different geodynamic settings: part of the undeformed Apenninic foreland (Piattaforma Apula Auct.), consisting mainly of shallow water mesozoic carbonates and part of the dinaric-hellenic foredeep (Southern Adriatic sea), in which a neogenic quaternary clastic sequence lies unconformably on pelagic mesozoic/paleogenic carbonates and marls. All seismo-stratigraphic data show a carbonate platform margin, eroded and buried by Upper Oligocene-Plio/Pleistocene clastics, which are organized in three main seismo-stratigraphic units (Upper Oligocene-Lower Miocene unit, Upper Miocene unit and Plio-Pleistocene unit) separated by regional unconformities (Upper Cretaceous/Paleocene unconformity A, Middle Miocene unconformity B and Upper Miocene unconformity C). They define one or more second order transgressive/regressive facies cycles in the Upper Oligocene-Upper Miocene interval, on which some third order stratigraphic cycles are superimposed, each corresponding to a depositional sequence. The physiography of buried carbonate platform margin (which is irregularly articulated) in the Puglia offshore has been reconstructed. It confirms that this margin separates areas which were part of different mesozoic/paleogenic depositional domains. The articulation and physiography of the Apulian margin are the result of an erosional retreat of mesozoic escarpment, mainly developed during the Tertiary; moreover, the morphological characters of the Apulian margin allow to compare it with the scalloped bank margins recognized in the Florida-Bahamas area.